Childhood Home
by Boba Addict
Summary: When Blu and Nico are captured and smuggled across the Atlantic, they end up on the Canary Islands. Nico is ecstatic, as he is from there, but there are a few residents that aren't quite happy with Blu's presence on their land, seeing his arrival as an intrusion, and they plan to do something about it. Will the blue macaw and canary ever get back home to Rio with no harm?
1. Captured

**So I've been wanting to write a Rio fanfic for a while now, just so I could give some love to this archive.**

**((And frankly, it really needs some sprucing up, what with the quality of 90% of the stories on here. Yup, I said it))**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Rio or any of its characters.**

It was twilight, the sun just high enough to be peeking out from over the mountains in the distance, casting a warm, pinkish glow over all of Ipanema. In the jungle, various birds were getting ready to snuggle in for the night, returning back from their food search to feed their families. For those birds who shared their hollows with no one, they chirped softly to themselves, melancholically wishing for a companion someday. All in all, it couldn't get any more peaceful at the moment. However, that moment was soon disrupted when a loud, shrill shriek penetrated the quiet atmosphere and sending quite a few birds scattering.

The scream had come from the mouth of none other than a small, yellow canary in a hollow. He was panicking frantically, being chased around the hollow by fifteen tiny toucan chicks. A red-crested cardinal was laying unconscious nearby, with three other toucan babies jumping on him and pulling at his feathers. A couple of birds flying by outside peered inside to see what the ruckus was all about, but once spotting the fiasco, they immediately hurried on their way. The eighteen toucans were infamous around Rio, due to their relation to their father, Rafael, otherwise known as the King of Carnaval. It was no secret that they were a menace either. One particular parrot had stopped by for a much longer viewing of what was going on.

"DON'T JUST STAND THERE AND WATCH! HELP US!" The canary yelled, eventually taking notice of him.

Instead of assisting, the parrot simply retreated and flew off into the distance, much to the canary's dismay, leaving him grumbling something about how parrots were evil yet stupid.

The catastrophic situation continued for who knows how long until Rafael and his mate Eva entered their home and saw how out of control everything was.

Eva nudged Rafael. "I told you your friends wouldn't be able to handle them."

Rafael cleared his throat, then shouted as loud as he could, "KIDS!"

All eighteen chicks immediately stopped terrorizing their babysitters and rushed over to their parents, and tackled them – or at least tried to. "Daddy! Mommy! You're back!"

Rafael, trying to keep half his children from climbing onto his face and blocking his eyesight, remarked with slight amusement, "Nico, you and Pedro told me you would be able to handle babysitting them."

Nico, trying to regain his breath from zooming around the hollow nonstop, retorted back, "Pedro was the one who said that, man! I had absolutely no say in anything whatsoever!"

"Yeah, sure, whatever you say. Speaking of Pedro, what happened to him?" The bigger bird gestured to the cardinal, who was still passed out.

"Uh, I dunno. Things started out okay at first, but then I guess they got hungry, so Manuel started eatin' our feathers, and the next thing I knew, all of them were chasin' us all around your home, and I think Pedro blacked out around the time Carlos brought up the idea of feastin' on our wings."

Rafael sighed and looked at Manuel, who was now on top of his head. "We still need to have you tested. As for you..." He turned to Carlos, who was tugging on Eva's left wing. "We need to teach you that wings aren't edible. Not for our species, at least."

"You finally convince me that I need to get out of the hollow more often, and I come home to see your incompetent friends suffering from our children," Eva grumbled, suddenly cross.

"Oh, but that was such a romantic date! Come on, beautiful, don't you remember just the two of us, gazing at that wondrous seaside together, with no one to bother us..." Rafael winked knowingly.

Eva tried not to smile at the thought. "Well..."

"And the sunset! Have you ever seen such a wonderful sunset?"

"No, I suppose not..."

"Of course, nothing beats the beauty that you contain, _meu amor_," Rafael grinned his signature charming grin.

Eva, finally giving up, shyly smiled back, followed by a flirtatious, "Oh, my pudgy papaya..."

"Oh, my banana beauty..." Of course, this was followed up by Rafael dipping his mate and smooching her.

Pedro, suddenly awake, sat up and deadpanned, "Ya know, just by lookin' at this right now, I think I'm starting to understand how ya keep on havin' so many kids, Raffy."

"I thought you were out," Nico muttered.

"Huh? Oh yeah, I forgot you guys were there. You two can go home now," Rafael momentarily stopped what he was doing to dismiss Nico and Pedro, and then resumed his session with Eva.

"Betting ya that there's gonna be a nineteenth by the end of the week," Pedro murmured to Nico as they both left the toucan hollow.

"Nah, Raffy knows better than to make more children. He's always complainin' about his gray feathers."

"Dude, he's been complainin' about 'em ever since he had his sixth. He'd have learned his lesson by now if he wasn't so head over heels in love with his wife."

"Alright, now you're just makin' that sound like a bad thing. Who knows, you've never had a girlfriend before."

"True, but neither have you," Pedro retorted. "Besides, I can settle for all the hot wings over at The Branch. Wanna go?"

"Way ahead of ya." Nico sped off ahead, leaving Pedro blinking at what just happened.

Pedro shook his head and yelled after his laughing friend before going after him, "NO FAIR!"

It was cardinal behind canary for a few minutes, until said canary bumped into something – or rather someone. Once Nico recovered from the impact, he looked up to see who he had collided into. "Oh, hey Blu."

"Huh? Oh yeah, hi Nico." He looked over the smaller bird's shoulder and called, "Hey, Pedro!"

Pedro ceased his flying speed until he halted completely in front of the blue macaw. "Sup, bird? Where's your hot wing?"

Blu frowned in confusion. "My hot wing? You mean Jewel? She's behind me, along with the kids."

"Now all of them are right beside you," Jewel and her children suddenly appeared beside her mate. "Honestly Blu, don't go speeding off like that. I'm hungry too, but you don't see me abandoning my family to find a watermelon to chew on."

Blu grinned sheepishly. "Heh, sorry about that."

"You guys headin' to the market? Me and Nico were just flyin' in the same direction to go to The Branch," Pedro piped up. "Wanna go together?"

"Blu could join us too!" Nico added cheerfully as they began to continue on their way.

"W-What?!" Blu sputtered. "No!"

"That's a good idea," Jewel smiled. "Someone's got to take care of the kids though, so I'm going to have to sit this one out this time around."

Blu shot his mate a scarred and somewhat betrayed look. "Don't I get a say in this?!"

"No," Nico smirked as Pedro grinned deviously.

* * *

"I still don't know about this," Blu said tentatively as he entered the club along with his outgoing friends.

Nico rolled his eyes as Pedro exclaimed, "Dude, you've been here before, and you always enjoy it here! What's got your wing feathers all tied up till you can't fly this time?"

"I'm not sure. I just have this gut feeling that it's a bad idea to be here tonight," Blu bit his beak nervously as he watched a red macaw take multiple shots at the bar area.

"Ah, quit bein' neurotic and loosen up!" Nico grinned. "You're always like this, freakin' out over nothin'!"

"Well sometimes that particular gut feeling I have doesn't like to be ignored and is begging everyone to listen to it," Blu snapped, but awkwardly shifted his feet forward, as if he was expecting something to suddenly pop out of the floor and scare the lights out of him.

"There's nothin' to be afraid of here, ya pigeon!" Pedro laughed, going behind Blu and pushing him to go faster.

"Don't you guys have a song to perform tonight or something?" Blu asked irritably.

Nico's eyes widened and he exclaimed to Pedro, "Dude, he's right! I can't believe we forgot all about our new song!"

"We rehearsed so hard for this one too, bro! Let's go up there now!" Pedro and Nico ushered themselves upstage to prepare.

Blu blinked. "Um... You're welcome for reminding you?"

* * *

"Alright, guys, I'm setting my talon down. I really need to head back home now," Blu spoke up, trying to drown out the noise of the loud music playing in the background. "Come on, I promised Jewel that I would be home in time to tuck my kids in for bed."

"Spoilsport," murmured Pedro.

"Alright, you're free to go now." Nico shook his head, but was smiling. "If you're really always this skittish, do you need someone to accompany you back?" he teased.

"Ha ha ha, so funny," Blu replied caustically. "You just reminded me, at least one of you has to go back to my hollow with me. You dragged me here, so it's my turn to drag you back."

"I'm the one stayin'!" Pedro said quickly, then darted deeper into the crowd.

"What?! Pedro, wait up–" Nico tried to protest, but Pedro was already out of hearing range. "...Traitor."

"Hm, so the canary's the one who wants to leave? Okay," Blu said innocently and grabbed Nico's wing. "Let's go."

"Hey, wait! Ya don't have to hold my wing for me to go! I can walk and fly myself! Now let go before someone gets the wrong idea!" Nico nervously looked around for any funny looks birds could've been shooting at them right now.

Blu sighed and obeyed. "Fine. Just hurry up."

He continued walking with Nico behind him muttering, "If this is your way of getting back at someone, you're really bad at it."

Once outside, Blu took off, with Nico trailing behind him.

"Hey Blu! Wait up!"

Blu hovered in the air as he let Nico catch up to him. "Sheesh, I know I said I could fly on my own, but that don't mean I can catch up to you from behind! Give this guy a break!"

"No offense, but you most likely couldn't catch up to me because of your s..." Blu trailed off as Nico gave him an intense death stare that could rival with Nigel's own hideous glare. "...S...S... Sand in your eyes."

Nico's expression changed into a smirk. "Nuh uh. I'll have you know that I haven't been at the beach since the day before yesterday."

"Well then I don't know!" Blu cried.

Nico simply shrugged, smirk still on his face, and they continued on their way. All was silent for a while, but the yellow bird finally broke the silence once they entered the jungle.

"Hey Blu?"

"Yeah?"

"Sorry."

"For what?"

"For dragging you to The Branch without your consent. I've been thinking about it for the past couple minutes, and I guess the right thing to do was to ask for your approval first. And I'm _not _just saying all this so you could let me off the hook," he added before Blu could start making assumptions.

Blu abruptly stopped flying, causing Nico, who had gone behind him again, to bump straight into him. The macaw stared at his friend with wide eyes. "Who are you and what have you done with Nico?!"

Nico frowned. "What?"

"According to my calculations, you've been acting 10% more serious, 50% calmer, and 70% quieter!" Blu pointed at Nico accusingly as if he just committed a notorious crime. "What gives?!"

"Am I supposed to be offended by that?"

"Preferably not."

"Dude, you're acting like I only have one side of me! Like I'm just some kind of literal party animal with no layers underneath!"

"After ten months of knowing you to act all crazy, birds tend to think that you can't behave any differently," Blu mumbled.

"Come on! Pedro's the crazy one here!"

"Both of you act exactly the same, especially when you're together!" Blu paused. "Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen you two separated from each other before now."

"You can only thank yourself for that," Nico stated flatly. "So I admit I kind of have a different attitude when I'm not standing within a 20-foot radius of Pedro. Also, nobody bases percentages off of that."

"You're talking differently as well. You said 'kind of' instead of the usual 'kinda.'"

Nico shot him a deadpan look. "Of course you would be the one to notice that and think of it as if it's a big deal."

"What's that supposed to–"

"Hey, don't you think it's a little too quiet around here?" Nico suddenly changed the subject, taking in their surroundings.

Blu bit back whatever he was going to say to his friend and looked around. Nico was right, it really was quiet to the point where it seemed that there was something fishy in the air. Holding back any worries he could've felt at that moment, he suggested, "Maybe everyone's just asleep."

"No, whenever me and Pedro are coming home late from a night at the club, there's always at least a few birds still up. And it's not even that late right now."

_You're acting more concerned than me for once_, Blu thought as he looked around once more. When he turned his head back to face Nico, the little canary wasn't there. "Nico?" _He better not have ditched me._

Suddenly, Nico shot out from some nearby bushes, his face panic stricken. "SMUGGLERS!" he screamed at Blu. "DON'T JUST STAND THERE! FLY!"

On normal circumstances, Blu would've winced at how strong the tiny bird's lungs were (especially for someone his size), due to his frequent performances at The Branch, but this was no normal circumstance. He and Nico flapped their wings as fast as they could to lose the pursuing humans. One of the men that were chasing them yelled behind his shoulder to a third smuggler, something about how he had spotted one of the last two blue macaws left in the world.

"Excuse me, but have you _not_ heard of the three baby blue macaws the female and I have produced?!" Blu yelled, though he knew full on well that they were just caws to the man, if he had heard him at all.

The two birds yelped as one of the men somehow appeared in front of them, ready to snatch them up. Nico managed to dodge, but Blu couldn't slow himself down in time. The human grabbed him roughly by the neck, but careful not to strangle him. Blu struggled to break free. "You're a feisty one, aren't ya?" the human growled, holding him close to his face.

Blu glared and shot back, "You're lucky I'm not my mate!" With that, he bit down hard on the man's thumb. The human yelped and immediately let go. "Again, you're lucky!" Blu spat out again.

Meanwhile, Blu's near-capture had distracted Nico momentarily, just enough time for the other human being to snatch him up. "Got ya, ya little rascal!"

Before Nico could follow Blu's strategy and bite down on the smuggler's hand, he was shoved in a cage.

"Nico!" shouted Blu. The man who had his finger injured snarled and, taking his chance, grabbed Blu and pushed him in alongside Nico before he could do any harm this time. "Yer gonna regret hurtin' me, ya little avian," he sneered.

Before either bird could react, the cage that held both of them was shoved into an old, tattered, brown sack, where there was nothing but darkness inside.

**Uuuuggggghhhhhhhh I don't like the way I ended this, but I can't think of anything better. **

**So this is the first chapter of my first ever Rio story. I won't be expecting too many reviews or follows or faves or whatever since there aren't that many people hanging around in this archive.**

**My favorite bird is Nico, in case you haven't caught on to that yet, haha. I've got a fully developed characterization of him and Pedro, along with a full story on how they met, where they came from, how they became such good friends, you get the idea. Expect some revelations about Nico's past in the later chapters.**

**Now please review! They make me happy :)**


	2. Boarded

After countless minutes of pacing back and forth around the hollow, Jewel sighed for the umpteenth time and looked out of the hollow. Behind her, her and Blu's kids were flying around, chasing each other hyperactively, not slowing down for one millisecond. It really was past their curfew, but Jewel had allowed them to stay up later than usual just this one time, since she understood how much all three of them wanted to see their father bid goodnight to them.

Speaking of their father, he really should've been back by now. He was the one who wasn't willing to go to The Branch, and he was the one who had promised his kids that he would be back before bedtime, so it really surprised the mother bird that he still hadn't come flying home, panting and apologizing for his absence. But then again, he was easily distracted, and Nico and Pedro were experts when it came to stalling...

_They better not have gotten him intoxicated_, Jewel thought bitterly, thinking of what she would do to the two tiny birds if that was true. Poor, harmless Blu just didn't do good being drunk, especially now that he was into fatherhood.

_What are you thinking, Jewel? They're your friends, they know better than to do that_, she shook off her previous thoughts. It was true. Nico and Pedro could be pretty reckless and irresponsible, but they weren't _that _reckless and irresponsible. Well, at least Nico wasn't. Jewel wasn't too sure about Pedro. Either way, Nico would've prevented a drunken Blu even if Pedro had attempted to pull a stunt like that.

Jewel sighed again and turned back to her kids, who were now roughhousing with each other on the floor. "Kids, time for bed," she spoke up over the noises the chicks were making.

All three of them immediately got up off of each other once they heard their mother speak. "But Mommy!" they whined in unison. "Daddy promised to be back!"

"No buts," Jewel said sternly. Then, with a gentler tone, she added, "I promise that I'll stay up and wait until your daddy comes back. Then I'll let you up for just a minute so you could welcome him back."

The kids were satisfied with that, and the next thing Jewel knew, she had tucked them all in the nest and they were snoring quietly to themselves. Jewel wearily looked back out the hollow. _Blu... Where the heck are you?_

* * *

It was around three in the morning when Pedro finally decided to leave the club. All that partying had put him in a good mood—he normally would be in a great mood when exiting The Branch, but Nico wasn't there to leave with him. Sure, Pedro _was_ the one who had ditched him with Blu a few hours ago, but he surely would've come right back once Blu had gone home. It was very unlike Nico to just cozy himself into his and Pedro's own shared hollow without at least letting the cardinal know he didn't feel like partying anymore. Even if he was a little irritated at Pedro for throwing him under the bus with Blu.

Once their hollow came into view, Pedro made a beeline for it. He flew in and cast a look where Nico's sleeping form was supposed to have been. He did a double take, having expected to see this bundle of yellow feathers in the nest. However, there was nothing. He was alone in the hollow. After making sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him, Pedro slipped into panic mode right away. Not knowing where Nico was would automatically send him into a frenzy, even if it was a false alarm and the canary had just gone out for a drink of water. Pedro took a deep breath at that last thought, trying to calm himself down. _It's okay... This has happened before, and Nico always came right back wonderin' why I was actin' all crazy. He doesn't need you goin' all panicky when everything's perfectly fine. I'll just...wait a few minutes. If he's not back, _then _it's alright to panic. If he's not back, then I'll go out lookin' for him._

So he waited, and Nico wasn't back by "a few minutes." Needless to say, Pedro kept his promise to himself and officially began to frantically search for his friend, scanning the nearby area. He wasn't behind any tree, he wasn't in a hollow with some lady bird (If Pedro wasn't so distressed, he would've laughed out loud at himself for even thinking that that was a possibility. Nico wasn't all for one-night stands), and he definitely wasn't back inside their own hollow when Pedro thought things over and decided to check it again. The cardinal was growing more and more stressed by the second. Every second was one more second his best friend was missing.

_What was that strategy that everyone uses when they want to find somethin'? _Pedro thought frustratedly to himself as he sat at the entrance of his and Nico's hollow. _Retrace your steps? Yeah, I think that's it._ Of course, he wasn't going to retrace his own steps, but Nico's. _'Kay. What places do you know for a fact that Nico had gone? I last saw him goin' out of The Branch, and he was gonna go and drop Blu off at his hollow even though he didn't want to, and he should've come right back..._

Blu. He was going to drop Blu off at his hollow. Blu surely would've been the last to see Nico before he went missing. Pedro zoomed off in the direction of the blue macaws' home, planning on attacking Blu with questions until he finally got a lead to where Nico might be. It didn't take him long to spot the tree where Blu and his family resided in, mostly because Jewel was fast asleep at the entrance and her bright colors stood out against the dark nighttime, making her an easy sight to notice. He immediately rushed over to her and shouted her name.

"JEWEL!"

Jewel started awake, ready to defend her kids if it was some midnight avian assaulter. After recognizing Pedro, she visibly relaxed. "Oh, it's you. Would you mind not yelling so loud? My kids are sleeping inside."

"Where's Blu?" Pedro whispered as loud as he could.

Jewel's expression turned to one of confusion. "Isn't he with you and..." She looked around, obviously trying to spot Nico. "Nico?"

That was surely not a reaction Pedro had expected, nor was it one that left a good feeling inside of him. "Ya mean he's not home yet?"

Jewel shook her head. "No, he never came back. I'm just waiting here at the entrance for him. Where's Nico?"

"He's missin'," Pedro said sadly. "I've been turnin' the jungle upside down searchin' for him, and I thought I could ask Blu where he is."

"Wait, what? If you don't know where Nico is, then what would make you think that Blu does?"

Pedro sighed. "Blu wanted to go home since he wanted to keep his promise to the kids, but I guess he was mad at us for draggin' him to the club without consultin' him first, so he wanted one of us to take him home. It's a weird act of payback, but whatevs," he shrugged, unable to resist adding in that remark. "I called dibs on stayin', so Nico was kinda thrown under the bus by me, and I saw both of them leave. I just got back and Nico isn't in our hollow, so I came here."

"There's been no sign of Blu either," Jewel croaked, starting to pick up on the gravity of the situation. "Pedro, I don't think this is a coincidence at all. They both left together, and now they're both gone. Something must've happened that we don't know about. They couldn't have just magically disappeared. It's way too strange."

Pedro groaned and put his face in his wings. "Great. I thought I could finally find Nico by questioning Blu, but it turns out the witness has disappeared off the face of the earth too." He raised his head up. "Maybe we could ask Raffy? He might not know either, but there's a chance that he does."

Jewel hesitated and looked back at her sleeping children. She turned back to Pedro and shook her head. "I can't afford to leave my kids alone, and I don't want to wake them up either. I can only wait until they wake up in the morning and then go to Rafael's."

Pedro gave an exasperated sigh and reluctantly agreed. "Yeah, I admit Raffy's a little testy when he first wakes up. Maybe we should just wait until the sun's out and then go find him."

Jewel nodded in consent. "Yeah, and no matter how unlikely it is, they might be back by dawn. I'm sure that's not the case, but it's possible."

Pedro nodded slightly. "Right. Well... G'night."

"Night." Jewel went back into her hollow.

Once Pedro was back in his own tree and lying down in his nest, he couldn't bring himself to fall asleep.

* * *

They were put on a plane. It seemed as if they were one of the last ones (out of about 50 other birds) to be captured, since the aircraft had taken off shortly after they were loaded on there. Typically, Blu had begun hyperventilating at first, but Nico had managed to calm him down and convince him that things would be okay. Blu was obviously skeptical to believe him, but he did so anyway in order to keep his sanity. They were now currently playing a game out of boredom...if it could even be called a game.

"Which organic molecules are most closely related to lipids? A: amino acids, B: fatty acids, C: nucleotides, or D: sugars?"

Nico stared at Blu. "What kind of messed up question is that?!"

"Linda had this question on her finals when she was in high school!"

"She's a _human_! I'm a _bird_! Birds don't get an education!" Nico paused and then added, "It's B, by the way."

Blu frowned. "If you knew the right answer, then why would you complain about it?"

"_I_ knew it. But I can't really say the same thing for the typical bird."

"True, true–" Blu stopped abruptly once he realized something. "Then how do you know it?"

"I get around a lot," was Nico's cryptic answer. "Anyway, it's my turn. What do you think Jewel's doing right now? A: She's extremely peeved and vowing to kill you, B: She's extremely worried and asking various birds if they've seen you and/or me, C: She's putting up with Pedro, since he's probably spazzing out right now, or D: She's not worried at all?"

Blu winced at the thought of poor Jewel frantically searching for him. "Anything except D. Though I strongly prefer that it's not A." He shuddered at that possibility. He had experienced a very moody Jewel when the eggs still weren't laid, and he definitely didn't want to be the target of her anger ever again.

Nico suddenly stood up. "I'm ending this game." He went over to the cage door and inspected it. Like last time, it was a padlock. He turned back to Blu. "Can't you do what you did last time? With the fire extinguisher and stuff?"

Blu rolled his eyes. "Do you see a fire extinguisher anywhere?"

He had a point. Nico sighed and sat down again. "I can't believe this is happening again. What is up with smugglers in Rio?"

"Beats me." Blu looked around the room. There was a large variety of bird species that also fell victim to the smugglers. There were macaws, there were parrots, there were tanagers, there were parakeets, and that was just the beginning. "Where do you think we're going?"

"Considering how long we've been on this flight, definitely not anywhere near Rio. So not Mexico, Chile, Argentina, or any other South American country."

"Maybe the United States?"

Nico shrugged. "Maybe. Or maybe it's somewhere across the Atlantic, like London or Paris."

"Paris has a smuggling system?"

"I dunno. It's only a suggestion."

Blu was the one who stood up this time. "We can't just sit around here and do nothing. We both have to get back to Rio," he said firmly, suddenly determined to get back to his family. "I have a mate and three kids, and you have Pedro. We can't just give up right now when they're probably overexerting themselves trying to find out where in the world we've gone."

Nico tilted his head in curiosity. "How are we gonna do that?"

"Easy. Play dead."

"...Play dead," Nico deadpanned. "Really. Play dead."

"Hey, me and Jewel did that when we were captured by Nigel and his goons!" Blu protested. "It worked...sort of."

"Yeah. Sort of." Nico was clearly still not impressed.

"That method was only ruined because Nigel was there to catch us when we seized our chance to escape! As for the humans, they totally fell for it," Blu tried one more time to convince the smaller bird.

Nico rolled his eyes. "Right. Considering we can't think of anything better, I guess we have no choice."

Blu smiled satisfactorily. "Thank you. Now I want to see how well you can act. Play dead for me."

Nico fell over, unmoving and his wide-open eyes unblinking.

Blu nodded in approval. "That's pretty good for your first try, but you might want to twitch."

Nico got up. "Blu, twitching just gives away that you're still alive and possibly having a seizure."

Blu frowned. "Aw, come on!" he cried. "Am I the only one who thinks that the twitching always settles it?!"

"What messed up living being in this world told you that?"

"Um... Alice and Chloe," Blu said.

"Who are they?"

"These two Canadian geese back in Minnesota who always picked on me..."

"And you _believed_ them?"

"...Anyway," Blu faked a cough. "You don't have to twitch if you don't want to. When you feel the plane beginning to land, just get into position."

"Roger."

**In all honesty, I don't like the part where Blu and Nico were talking. I swear, it's just-**

**I just want to let you guys know that I have never gone one story without adding in some lightheartedness. I'm not sure if it's because I can't help myself, or if it's just a habit.**

**I was pleasantly surprised at the number of faves and follows I received. I love you guys.**

**Review if you can!**


	3. Escaped

"...and we were wondering if you have any lead to where they might be," Jewel finished, glancing anxiously at Rafael. Pedro hovered beside her, looking a bit too jittery to be okay. Nico's disappearance had taken a huge toll on him.

Rafael blinked, soaking all the information in. "You say they left the club and then just disappeared?"

"Yes!" Pedro exclaimed desperately, looking around for any sign of a tiny yellow canary...or a much bigger, blue macaw. When he failed to spot any clues, his shoulders (or where his shoulders should've been) slumped. "This is my fault. I shouldn't have left Nico alone with Blu. If I was with them, I would know where they went."

"Pedro, don't say that." Rafael draped a wing over his friend comfortingly. "If that was the case, you would likely be missing along with them."

"But I would at least know where my best friend is!" Pedro's hopeless eyes met Rafael's. "What if I'm never gonna see him again?"

"Pedro, Blu's missing too. It's not just Nico," Jewel reminded him. "Trust me, I'm just as worried as you, but I know that spazzing out isn't going to help any. If something terrible really happened to them, we should be figuring out a way to solve this."

"She's right," Rafael agreed. "We could start by asking nearby birds if they saw anything out of place last night. At least one bird in the jungle should have some kind of hint."

Pedro took a deep breath to calm himself. "Right. You guys are right. I just...never have been separated from him for so long without knowin' where he is, ya get what I'm sayin'?"

Rafael nodded understandingly. "We get it. That's the loss everyone has to feel at least once in their lives." He sighed. "Let's just hope this isn't one of those cases..."

He didn't say anything else as he spread his wings and took off, with Jewel and Pedro following suit.

* * *

The plan was simple. Play dead, and the smugglers were most likely just going to toss them to the side carelessly, which would obviously be their time to flee. Both birds were so into attempting to perfect their 'dead' poses, time flew by quickly until the plane was finally scheduled to land.

"You ready?" Blu whispered, nudging Nico.

The canary only responded with a small nod.

As if on cue, the plane suddenly lurched downward, the force causing the two birds (and all the other prisoners) to lose their footing.

Blu winced as he rubbed his now-sore back. "Ow..."

A parakeet, whose cage had been conveniently located on top of a stack of several other cages by the door to the pilot room, eavesdropped intently on the frantic conversation the human smugglers were having with each other as they fiddled with the controls. His eyes widened when he picked up on what they were saying. "Plane malfunction! We're gonna crash!" he shrieked, eyes about to pop out of his own head.

"What! Now?!" Nico shouted. "Why?! Seriously, why?!"

Blu was simply gaping with his beak hanging open. Snapping it shut, he muttered to himself, eye twitching, "Calm down, Blu... The pilots will probably figure out how to regain control of the plane... Just find your happy place... Things will be better..."

Nico, getting more than a little concerned over his friend's apparent trauma, fluttered over to him and slapped him on the face gently. "Blu..."

"Yeah?" Blu asked, blinking back to reality.

"The parakeet keeps on shouting stuff and..."

"Uh huh?"

"The pilots don't know what's wrong with the airplane."

"...Meaning?"

"...We're definitely bound to crash," Nico deadpanned, right before the plane tilted downward and sped down to the ground. "Oh dear Jesus, HOLD ME!" the canary wailed and hopped into Blu's wings.

Blu ended up dropping him almost right away, as he fainted, not even experiencing the plane actually hitting the ground half a minute later.

* * *

_"...Blu..."_

Blu woke up with a start at the sound of his name being called. Noticing the smoke surrounding the room now and making it hard to see, he looked around apprehensively, letting out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding in when he saw that Nico was still in the same cage as him. Despite the troubled look on his face, the smaller bird seemed completely unfazed.

Nico let out a sigh of relief of his own. "You're awake. Good."

"Ugh..." Blu winced as he rubbed his head. "How long was I out?"

"Not too long. Just for like a minute or two." Nico coughed. It was becoming extremely hard to breathe by the second. "We need to get outta here."

"How?" Blu questioned helplessly. "Things haven't exactly improved for us or anyone else. We're still stuck in here, and the situation just got worse considering we just crashed."

"We have to at least try!" Nico snapped, then exhaled exasperatedly. "Sorry, this is just...hard to handle well right now."

Blu shook his head. "No... No, you're right. Our friends are still waiting for us back in Rio. We've got to try everything we can to get out of this place."

"Well then, you might want to do that soon."

Both birds looked up at the new voice. During the rough landing, a cage containing an orange parrot had toppled onto their own metallic jail cell.

"What are you talking about?" Blu asked, confused.

The parrot gestured in a random direction, and both the macaw and canary turned to look. Much to everyone's dismay, a small fire in the far corner of the room had started in the midst of the plane crash, and appeared to be slowly becoming bigger. The screams and worried murmurs of the rest of the captured birds only became noticed at that moment.

"You have got to be _kidding_ me!" Nico groaned, covering his face in his wings.

Blu looked just about ready to drop all signs of sanity and go nuts. "How did that even start...?" he inquired, voice strangely passive.

The parrot simply shrugged. "I dunno. Oil leak, maybe?"

Nico whirled on the orange bird. "How can you be so calm about this?!"

The parrot shrugged again. "I'm old. The amount of panic I get kinda corresponds with my age. Besides, I doubt the smugglers are just gonna let all their birds burn to death."

The parakeet, who still somehow managed to remain by the pilot room door and had been listening in on the conversation, screamed, "All three smugglers are _dead_, you fool! _Dead_!" he screamed at the parrot.

"Oh, okay." The parrot blinked. "Not my problem."

"IT IS OUR PROBLEM!" the three other birds yelled at the parrot, who was really shaping himself up to be a moron.

Blu coughed from the smoke, inhalation finally beginning to take a toll on him. "I know this is like the millionth time someone's said this, but we really need to get out of here."

"No, really?" the parakeet growled at him, and hurled his entire body at his cage. Needless to say, he only ended up giving himself a throbbing head. "Okay, so clearly, getting out of this is gonna be tough," he muttered, rubbing his head.

Blu only grumbled something involving how parakeets were hypocritical when it came to stating the obvious.

"Come on, guys. We need to pull it together," Nico piped up. "Especially you, Blu, since you're supposed to be the smart one here, but instead you're distracted by a sarcastic parakeet, and I end up having to be the leader here, even though I'm not supposed to be, and considering the fact that I'm the only one who notices the fire getting bigger, _I feel like I'm surrounded by a bunch of birdbrains_!" His tone had started out casual, but had raised and grown more irritated as he continued.

_There it is again,_ Blu thought. _His abnormally large canary lungs._ He looked toward where he had saw the small flame earlier and, just like Nico said, it was rapidly spreading. Blu was sure it was at least three times bigger now. It was cutting dangerously close to several cages, their captives beginning to fret even more so. Wings began to flap helplessly and loud squawks became audible to every captured bird.

"...That's it," the blue macaw announced, plopping down sloppily on the floor of his cell. "We're all doomed. We should just stop panicking and face all of our deaths calmly."

Nico pointed a wing tip at him menacingly. "You get up off the floor or you'll be dying a much quicker way." As if to make his point clear, he held up a very sharp talon for Blu to see.

Blu only gave him an unimpressed glance. "I'd rather get killed off quickly by another bird than insufferably burn in the fire. Be my guest."

Nico sighed exasperatedly, and put his foot down, having been caught in his bluff. "You are hopeless. Come on, think of Jewel and the kids."

Blu was up in an instant with renewed determination, remembering the family he needed to get back to. "I'm up. We need to figure out a way." He searched all around—high and low, left and right—frantically.

Nico shook his head. "Macaws," he mumbled under his breath.

"Hey!" Blu exclaimed.

Nico looked at him. "Wait, you heard me?"

"Heard what?" Blu frowned in confusion. "Whatever, never mind. I found something." He held up a sharp pin.

"Where'd you get that?" Nico asked curiously.

Blu shrugged. "It was just right next to our cage. Luckily, it wasn't too far away for me to reach."

Nico opened his mouth to question why neither of them noticed the pin before, but decided that now wasn't the time. "Well, hurry up and break the lock! In case you didn't notice, the fire's still going on!"

Blu got the hint and hurriedly inserted the pin into the padlock roughly. He wiggled it around, and no more than two seconds later, he successfully unlocked the cage, got rid of the padlock, and swung open the door. He and Nico stepped out.

"Hurry up!" Blu tugged on Nico's wing and flew up to the hatch door, where the button was located near the top. _How convenient,_ he thought.

However, Nico didn't follow him. He hesitatingly looked back at the other bird prisoners. "What about them?"

"We don't have time for them!" Blu urged, stopping in his tracks to look at his canary friend. "We can only save ourselves!"

"But..." Nico trailed off. He looked at a nearby cage, which held a small, pink, female finch who gazed back at him with wide, helpless eyes. Before Nico could think his decision through logically, he had already picked up the pin that Blu had dropped once they had escaped their cell, and was unlocking the finch's cage.

"What are you doing?!" Blu cried out to him. Seeing that he was being ignored, he flew back down to Nico, who had already gone through a number of cages. "If we don't hurry, we'll die!"

"And if we hurry, the rest of these birds will die!" Nico snapped at him. In a more placid tone, he added, "We can all make it out of this, Blu. I'm already going as fast as I can."

Blu opened his beak to say something, but no words would come out. Instead, he could only watch as Nico worked his way through five, ten, twenty cages with ease. By the time he reached the last cage, the fire had become enormous. Flames were all around

Blu, taking notice of this, lost his speechlessness and shouted to his friend, "Hurry, Nico!"

"I'm trying!" Nico yelled back desperately, trying to free that overly casual parrot from earlier. But the more frantic he grew, the more difficult it was to successfully pick the lock. Nico took a deep breath as an attempt to calm himself down just enough to be able to be triumphant in unlocking this last prison. Behind him, he heard the hatch door opening, but he didn't bother to look back to see who had pressed the button. With one final jab at the lock, it broke free. "Come on! Get out!"

Once the parrot was out, Nico turned to go. However, a searing pain suddenly erupted from his tail feathers. His stomach sinking, he hesitantly looked back to see what was wrong. What he saw made his pupils shrink—his tail was on fire. He hadn't noticed the flames had gotten rather close to him and the cage he had just unlocked. Screaming a not-too-manly scream, he shot past the stunned Blu and out of the hatch faster than any other bird there.

The plane turned out to have crashed on a beach, right next to the coast. Nico hurled himself into the ocean water in a desperate attempt to put out his tail. Ten seconds later, he surfaced and got himself back on dry land. Blu, concerned for him, was already waiting for him there.

Nico collapsed and fell forward onto his face at Blu's feet. Not bothering to look up, he mumbled into the sand, "Are all the birds okay?"

Blu nodded. "Yeah." He pointed at the horde of birds flying off into the distance, presumably in the direction of home.

Nico raised his head and laughed weakly. "What'd I tell you? We all made it out alive."

"Your tail feathers caught fire."

"I'm not dead though." Nico looked back at his tail, which was now charred. It would heal with time, but it was undoubtedly damaged. He gingerly brushed a wing tip over it, and winced at how it hurt. Catching the worried look his friend was giving him, he reassured, "I'm fine. Really."

Blu looked skeptical to believe that, but dropped the subject. He looked around the beach. "Where are we anyway?"

For the first time since they escaped, Nico got a close look at where they were. There was something about this beach that intrigued him greatly, and he looked off into the distance where the city could be seen. It didn't take long for him to figure out where they were, and once he did, he grinned widely for the first time that day. "This place... I know this place..."

**...Hi. It's been a while. I'm sorry, this really wasn't meant to take so long. Honest. For some reason, I just wasn't feeling this chapter. I find it kind of dumb, frankly. At least, the part where the plane crashes.**

**...It'll get better. I promise.**

**Another reason why I didn't finish this chapter sooner is because I was afraid that this would seem like a ripoff of Angel015's Flying Home (which is much more wonderful than this shizzle). I don't remember why I thought that, but yeah.**

**Please review!**


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